Occupational Therapy for Children
Occupational therapy for children works with young people and families to provide highly individualised occupational therapy for children and teenagers in Sydney. An OT is an allied health professional who can help youths of all ages to become more independent and improve their general functioning so that they can engage in relationships, participate in their community, and perform the everyday tasks they want or are required to do.
Occupational therapy for children and occupational therapy for teenagers aims to achieve this in two main ways:
– Developing the young person’s functional skills (and those of the young person’s family/carers) to help them complete the most important tasks and activities in their daily lives.
– Amending the young person’s physical environment to alleviate the major hindrances brought on by their medical condition or disability as much as possible.
Occupational therapy for children works with NDIS funded and self-funded (privately paying) kids and their families who need OT. Our team helps youths engage in their everyday tasks or working lives through personalised programs, such as attending school or work, completing self-care tasks, enhancing independence with accessing the community and participating in leisure activities.
Occupational therapy for children helps young people in Sydney achieve their own meaningful goals. This process often involves the following:
- Gaining a thorough understanding of the young person’s background including relevant information regarding their personal, health and social histories.
- Identifying meaningful personal and health goals with the young person and their family.
- Completing standardised assessments (functional assessments) to help identify the young person’s main strengths and difficulties regarding their general level of functioning. These assessments explore all aspects of the youth’s life at home, school and/or work, and can also help to guide or shape other interventions or supports needed (e.g., other allied health streams or support workers).
- Working within the young person’s home, school, and community environment to develop highly unique and individualised interventions and strategies to enhance the young person’s independence.
- Providing education, support and building the skills of the young person’s family, carers and/or other key stakeholders (e.g., teachers, support workers) to consolidate a holistic and integrated approach to better support the youth in their daily environment.
Occupational therapy for children is helpful and specialised for the young person, family and their carers for a number of different reasons. First and foremost, it helps those who have physical and/or mental disabilities or medical conditions learn how to better understand and manage their conditions, improve their functioning and/or modify their physical surroundings to better support their needs.
As the child grows, occupational therapy for children and teenagers can be altered to adapt to their new needs and changing goals. For example, a child’s primary goals may centre around boosting their basic self-care, fine and gross motor skills. As the child grows and moves into the teenage years, their focus may shift more towards increasing social participation in their community and exploring their options for further study, employment or other vocational paths.
Early access to occupational therapy for children means that more can be done to increase their overall functioning, and they will be able to become more independent as they get older. This will assist them to take care of themselves at home, manage their own finances, transport and ideally, ultimately find fulfilling employment or vocational roles.
Occupational therapy for children and teenagers is useful not just to fine-tune physical skills and increase independence, but it can also help to prevent or minimise further degeneration of the person’s functional and practical skills. For instance, a young person with a physical disability may have changing needs for equipment or other assistive technology as they mature, and their condition fluctuates.
An OT is qualified to assess the person’s situation and needs, then prescribe suitable equipment to facilitate their ability to perform the activities they need to on a daily basis.
It is important for kids with developmental difficulties to become involved with some form of OT as soon as possible. Effective occupational therapy for children will determine how they will act in their adult years, and how they will interact with the world and society as a whole. It is therefore obvious that they learn these skills early through occupational therapy for children in order to succeed in their adult life.